Interactive server (wxgazebo)

wxgazebo is a interactive graphical version of the server; it creates a set of windows through which users can monitor and control the progress of the simulation.

In practice, wxgazebo simple wraps around the underlying console-mode server (running the latter as a child process); users should therefore read the Console-mode server (gazebo) documentation before proceeding.

The interative server is run as follows:

$ wxgazebo [options] <worldfile>

Options are documenated on the Console-mode server (gazebo) page.

Basic usage

The wxgazebo interface is fairly self-explanatory. On start-up, a simulation control panel is created; this lists all the interfaces currently instantiated in the server, grouping them by model and interface type. Check the box to the left of a list entry to create a new panel for that particular interface.

Simulation control panel

The simulation control menu provides a number of additional options:

Pause: pause or unpause a running simulation (freezes the simulator clock).

Reset: reset all top-level models to their initial pose. Note that this does not reset any other aspect of the simulation, including the simulation time.

Save: save the current pose of all top level models to the world file. This will also change the initial pose used by the Reset option.

ObserverCam (guicam) panel

This panel interacts with any model supporting the guicam interface; in practice, this is usually just the ObserverCam model. The panel displays the current camera view, which can be modified by clicking and dragging with the mouse (conceptually, one grabs an object or a piece of the terrain and drags it to a new location). The mouse button assignments are as follows:

Left button: rotate
Right button: translate
Middle button: zoom

ObserverCam panel

This panel also has a number of menu options:

Roll lock: lock out roll changes such that the camera is always oriented with the global z axis (i.e., the camera is always right-way-up).

Save frames: if enabled, the server will save numbered frames to disk (good for making movies).

Display options: there are a host of options for controlling various aspects of the rendering.

Other panels

There are panels for many (but not all) of the interfaces defined in libgazebo. One day I may actually document these.

Last updated 12 September 2005 21:38:45